I'm still going to hold onto the notion that they're paying those savings forward in some other way. More food or drink shared with others, more blinky glowy shiny on their art. Mind you, I've never been very good at hanging onto the stuff…

trilobyte wrote:...it's just that the majority of ticket buyers, when they got through, simply purchased the lowest available tier even when higher tiers were available. While it seems a selfish thing to do...

The moral calculus of this is also simply impossible.

With the plethora of easy credit available, the definition of affordability varies so greatly from household to household. How much discretionary income do I need each month to morally qualify for a $240 or $320 ticket? How do I calculate my discretionary income? Should I buy cheaper dog food? What about my grocery choices? Are fresh vegetables a luxury item as compared to canned vegetables? Is home internet service a luxury? Do I need to fix the muffler on my car right now - it is loud but not a safety hazard? What about my passenger side mirror that has been duct-taped on for a month? Can I spend money on a monkey hut to put around my tent - or should I put that $80 towards a ticket and deal with the sun? Should I buy extra bacon and coffee for other people? Do I really need a second bag on the plane? How much should I be saving for retirement?

How painful is painful? If it takes me three months to save up $300, what tier do I go for, knowing that I have other burn costs to account for, and also knowing that I have to live my life?

How much do I spend on an anniversary present, and how does that expenditure count when thinking about what tier I can afford?

Do I really need to make an EL-wire samurai suit, even if it only leaves me with enough money for a $320 ticket?

Should I work a few extra hours past 40, or do a few more handyman jobs on the side? Did I work as many jobs as I could of?

I know that there are people for which $400 is an obvious no-go, and there are people for which it is unthinkable, but I imagine there are a lot of people like me scratching their heads and trying to figure out right from wrong here.

trilobyte wrote:There have been words on the ticket page to encourage people to purchase higher tier if they could afford them (so that more lower tier tickets would be available for people who couldn't afford them) from 2004-2011, it's just that the majority of ticket buyers, when they got through, simply purchased the lowest available tier even when higher tiers were available. While it seems a selfish thing to do, I suspect that many people justified the choice by rationalizing that it gave them more money to put towards gifting or the creation of art.

Gaaa... guilt trip. "Selfish" word is so freely used. Moral and what's considered the "right" thing to do is so subjective. And honestly how someone spends the $70 dollars they save from getting a $320 ticket instead of $390 is their own business and the value it holds for someone can only be measured by their own standards. I don't want to spend $390 for a ticket and that's my prerogative. I might spend $70 on gifting/art, spend it on the house, or buy myself something *gasp*... which choice is more meaningful to me can only be decided by me and not by some community. Call me selfish, but I don't think a community/org should tell anyone what is morally correct thing to do.

If an org wants me to spend $390, then don't give me a choice. As simple as that.

trilobyte wrote:There have been words on the ticket page to encourage people to purchase higher tier if they could afford them (so that more lower tier tickets would be available for people who couldn't afford them) from 2004-2011, it's just that the majority of ticket buyers, when they got through, simply purchased the lowest available tier even when higher tiers were available. While it seems a selfish thing to do, I suspect that many people justified the choice by rationalizing that it gave them more money to put towards gifting or the creation of art.

Gaaa... guilt trip. "Selfish" word is so freely used. Moral and what's considered the "right" thing to do is so subjective. And honestly how someone spends the $70 dollars they save from getting a $320 ticket instead of $390 is their own business and the value it holds for someone can only be measured by their own standards. I don't want to spend $390 for a ticket and that's my prerogative. I might spend $70 on gifting/art, spend it on the house, or buy myself something *gasp*... which choice is more meaningful to me can only be decided by me and not by some community. Call me selfish, but I don't think a community/org should tell anyone what is morally correct thing to do.

If an org wants me to spend $390, then don't give me a choice. As simple as that.

I have purchased a lower tier than I can afford every time I have bought a ticket... I put the "saved" money towards my travel costs.

If, in the end, I can help out a needing burner I will. No one is going to force me to.

I would not feel guilty in any way!!

Love Rice

Roach: "I feel like in this day and age, every girl should know how to build a flamethrower."

I bought presale, ie expensive tickets until 2010, when my financial circumstances changed and I had to get into the fray on opening day. Second tier in 2010 and first in 2011. I just figured, why deal with hovering over a computer when I could just lock in my place early?

The tiers probably made a lot more sense before the lower priced tickets started selling out right away. Another festival I go to uses tiers to get cash up front, and I've hosted events that charge more at the door; again, to get expected money up front.

I know someone who is collecting cans to come up with his low income price ticket. Then he'll collect a bunch more for the food & gas. If the Burn is important to you, you do what you have too. Lucky I have a lot of credit, even if I don't have a lot of income!

remi wrote:Last year when another festival's tickets went on sale, all three tiers became available at the same time, and 8 people purchased the most expensive tier before the first tier sold out. So, not many people, but some think of others before themselves. And why "not including presale"? I thought the purpose of having expensive presale tickets was to offset the price of the scholarship and low income tickets. Thats the only reason I purchased presale tickets. If because of my 2 presale tickets, one person gets to go to BM that wouldn't be able to otherwise, I feel like i've done my duty.

So let me get this straight: eight (8) people get up early in the morning, click at the exact moment to get the tier 1 tickets before some odd 8000 other people do, and then in the end--after all that stress--opt to buy the most expensive tickets they could have purchased for months afterwards?

I'm calling bullshit on that.

As for pre-sale tickets, no, they're not to offset the scholarship tickets, and never were. Traditionally, pre-sale tickets are for people to gift to people for something like Christmas or other events that happen far prior to the regular distribution of tickets, or just to get the ticket early (see pink's reply above). You get them early by paying more than you could otherwise if you had gotten up early and gotten in on Tier 1 and Tier 2. This year is different, and it seems the pre-sale's price premium is to capitalize upon those people who are scared into believing that they won't get a ticket through the main sale (and to test out the lottery system).

This is the only year that pre-sale tickets have sold for more than even the Tier 3 (as opposed to Tier 4) prices. Last year they were $280 each--$40 less than the regular sale price ($320). They didn't offset any costs for low-income or scholarship tickets, and they're actually a bargain compared to standard prices. But this year...

Not wanting to sound like they're just bumping up the price to take advantage of pre-sale jitters, the stated price premium "helping" to offset low-income/scholarship tickets is, again, just lip-service for those deluded enough to believe that the price premium is to benefit less well-off folk. It could have easily be covered by the cross-the-board price hike, and the elimination of Tier-4 this year. The elimination of Tier-4 means that the pre-sale tickets have also experienced a major price hike compared to previous years--ignoring that they added $30 on top of that--from $280 to $390. With the 200% more pre-sale tickets, just selling them at Tier-3 ($390) would've been a major increase in revenue. Who knows how many more low-income/scholarship tickets above 3,500 they'll even add, and if the price for these tickets will end up averaging higher than the previous scholarship/low-income ticket price separation.

Elliot wrote:Seems to me, the tiered prices would have been invented to bring in cash flow early in the year, so the office would have money to operate. Clearly, there is no practical way to identify thousands of people who truly have tight finances, so the year-round cash flow issue must be the reason.

Yes, that was the main reason behind it all. BMORG stuck that "save the cheaper tickets for the less fortunate" crap on there just to try and keep those "radical inclusion" vibes, when really that is just lip-service people seem to believe.

BMORG now has enough spare capital to not need the tiers to run the event without the initial influx of cash. However, it is still beneficial to sell the majority of your tickets early on just to ensure that population levels are known early, and that there isn't some mad dash at the end to get those tickets out to people who figure they have a whole 6-months to earn 0.01% interest on their $800.

Then, when the first two tiers began selling out on the first day of sales, the whole tier system would have become obsolete and terminated.

Well essentially it does right? The tiers are usually gone after a week, and then you have the remainder of the tickets at the regular price. This year, the tiers still serve some purpose in that people who are unwilling to spend more than a certain tier can opt to only be considered for it. There's no real harm in having them, even if they never serve, or ever really have, that lip-service load-of-wash about "saving tickets for less-fortunate burners."

trilobyte wrote:I'm still going to hold onto the notion that they're paying those savings forward in some other way. More food or drink shared with others, more blinky glowy shiny on their art. Mind you, I've never been very good at hanging onto the stuff…

That is a far better use of those savings rather than the "pay for the most expensive tier you can" pointless gesture. I'd much rather benefit more people at the event with the money, or even just other campmates, than just have a single person save $70 or something on their specific trip.

As far as I'm concerned, if I'm saving just one person that $70, that's money that is saved out in the Default World, rather than being spent at the event for the enjoyment of those at the event. The net spending is the same, just allocated to more worthy causes.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

trilobyte wrote:I wasn't trying to make anyone feel guilty, wh..sh, people can be as selfish (or selfless) as they care to.

Agreed.But that's no measure of selfishness. To put things in a little perspective, for $350, I can sponsor education for 2 kids in India for a whole year. That's the condition of the world. That's why I don't feel deeply sorry about "poor me, I can't go to burning man" situation. Most of us can't hang on to money. If it doesn't go out through one door, it goes out through another. But it's for me to decide if I want to buy a high price ticket or give that $70 to a homeless person or pick what I think is worthy. It does not make me any more selfless or any less selfish.

BBadger wrote:So let me get this straight: eight (8) people get up early in the morning, click at the exact moment to get the tier 1 tickets before some odd 8000 other people do, and then in the end--after all that stress--opt to buy the most expensive tickets they could have purchased for months afterwards?

I'm calling bullshit on that.

I really don't give a shit if you believe me. Not everyone is as selfish as you think. I almost feel sorry for people that have such pessimistic views on life. The tickets for the festival I'm talking about went on sale at 8pm, so nobody had to get up early. And I know it's not bullshit, because I bought 2 out of those 8.. also, there were only 3000 first tier tickets available. Some people, the stress comes from not having a ticket... it's not all about getting the cheapest ticket available. Which is another reason I got the 420$ presale tickets.. because of the feeling of actually having secured a ticket... and I gotta say, it feels good! As for the presale tickets.. my facts could have been mixed up, or perhaps I just read someone's post on here that didn't know what they were talking about (which I'm sure isn't the first time that happened,) and if that's the case, I appologize for relaying such information.

trilobyte wrote:It's okay if people think you're selfish. As you said yourself, it's subjective.

is it?

What you said sounded same to me as someone saying "If you don't sacrifice your money to buy your church friends vacation, you are being selfish" to which I would say "whatever". Besides, all you selfless people are making me very nervous

Just promise me that no one is going to start channelling Ayn Rand and telling us how buying the cheap tickets when you can afford more is good for those who get no ticket because they pushed out of first tier and can't afford any better.

Because, that would be dreary, not amusing. And Oscar trumps Ayn any day of the week.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri

@wh..sh - I think you're infusing some kind of bizarro guilt trip church drama of your own there, in the reply to Elliot that you jumped in on I certainly wasn't making any kind of judgment - it was an explanation of how I believe others were view their choices. But yeah, whatever.

My favorite motto is "give until it feels good," which is right at the core of the problem of Ayn Rand's attempt at philosophy - giving feels real fucking good. I think that this is because people are mammals. If I was a lizard-man, I think I would agree with Rand.

Giving feels good until you go full puritanical and start feeling miserable because you bought a donut when so many good charities really need your help. Then life just sucks again. Buy donuts, give donuts away, eat donuts, have fun with the new friends that you made sharing donuts with. Or if you just want to be alone with your donut real bad then do it!

I think Rand was a pissy and unlikable person to start with, who then pretty much declared war on anyone who didn't do it her way (or how she told them to do it) as a result of severe damage in the Russian Revolution.

We evolved in small groups wherein mutual assistance was necessary for survival.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri